Why the UK Leaving the EU was an Act of God

Sunderland is famous for two things these days.

The first is its Premier League football team, which with clockwork regularity bumps around the bottom of the league, then sometime in the winter or spring sacks (fires) its manager then via a stunning late surge in form, escapes demotion into the next league down, the Championship.

The second claim to fame is its ability to count votes in national elections very quickly.  If only we still built ships so effectively!  Sunderland’s council officers have the logistics off to a fine art.  So when the nation waits for the first election results to come in, we routinely see Sunderland’s returning officer, Dave Smith, reading out the first results of the night to a waiting nation.  This is followed by whoops of delight by the local Labour contingent and their newly elected MP (they always win by a country mile) followed by some quick analysis by the statisticians to deduce how the rest of the night is going to go for all of the parties.

So it was on the night of 23^rd and 24^th June, but this time the vote was arguably more important.  The British public certainly thought so.  Turnout was high, up by about 8% in the North East to over 69%.  And the rest of the world was watching attentively as well.  On this occasion, Newcastle’s super-efficient staff beat those of Sunderland and they announced their results (a narrow vote to remain in the EU) at the stroke of midnight.  Fifteen minutes later, Sunderland announced that they had voted 61% to 39% to leave the EU, a much bigger margin than anticipated.  From then on, most people knew deep down that the rest of the nation were going to vote ‘Leave’.

I believe that this result is of the Lord.  Let me spell that out.  I believe that God wanted the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.  We can have a debate as to whether that is God’s mercy on us, or his judgement.  But I think that it is in His purposes and the Lord wanted to show us this.  Why do I think this?  Because it was so unlikely, and because it has the classic signs of an act of God.

Let me explain.

11.   A commitment to hold the referendum was in the Election Manifesto of the Conservative Party when the General Election of 2015 took place.  None of the other parties made the referendum a manifesto commitment.  It can be said that this was against the will of most senior members of the party, including the leader, David Cameron.  The only reason it was in was to head off a challenge from the UK Independence Party, which threatened to take away millions of votes from the Conservatives (which, in fact, they did).  The only way this referendum was to be carried out was if the Conservatives won, outright.

22.  The General Election of 2015 was won by the Conservative Party.  They won more than half of the seats in the House of Commons, 330 out of 650.  This was a surprise result.  Nobody seriously foresaw this, not even the Conservatives.  At best they were hoping to share power with the Liberal Democrats or any of the nationalist or Northern Ireland parties.  In which case they could have avoided having the referendum.  Consider this.

a.      Up until election day, opinion polls indicated that Labour had 33% support, the Conservatives 34%, UKIP 14% and the Liberal Democrats 10%.  The Scottish Nationalists were likely to win most of their 59 seats North of the Border.  So a coalition of Labour and the Scottish Nationalists looked likely.

b.     The constituency boundaries are currently biased in favour of the Labour Party.  I am not making a political point, here.  But there is proportionally more inner city ‘Labour’ seats with smaller populations than ‘Conservative’ seats.  So if the two parties polled equally, Labour would win more seats.

c.      There were 92 opinion polls before the election.  42 had Labour in the lead.  35 had the Conservatives leading.  17 showed a ‘dead heat’.  Of the 35 showing a Conservative lead, the highest lead was by 6% over Labour.  When the election actually took place, the Conservatives actually polled 8% above Labour.  Not one of the 92 polls had them ahead by this much.

d.     The bookmakers were not predicting an outright Conservative win.  The odds were 7/1 against.

33.  Even though the new government was obliged to have the referendum, nobody seriously considered that people would vote to leave the EU.  The odds were against this right up until the night of the vote.  Remain was 6/1 odds on according to the bookmakers.  Even the leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage, was predicting that ‘Remain’ had the most votes.

44.  Now a look at the weather.  God has used the weather, sometimes good, sometimes bad, to bring deliverance to our nation at many moments of crisis.  To get an idea of this, look up the Spanish Armada, Dutch Navy 1688, Dunkirk in 1940, D-Day in 1944… I could go on.  So what was the British weather like on June 23^rd?  Well, the area of England that was the most pro-Remain was London.  What happened in London and the South East?  Floods!  Torrential rain and disruption to travel in London.  Many commuters complained that they could not get home in time to vote.  And what happened in the pro-Leave North?  Warm sunshine all day.  Coincidence?

55.  Finally, I want to look at the issue of prayer.  I only have anecdotal evidence here, but from conversations I have had, I believe a lot of people were praying fervently for the nation at this time.  An organisation named ‘Intercessors for Britain’ used to have their main annual prayer event in London every January.  But 18 months previously, they decided to reschedule the meeting to July.  The 18^th, to be precise – the Saturday before the referendum.  And this was planned long before the date had been set by the Prime Minister.  But God knew!

I I have kept a souvenir.  As the results are announced through the night, the newspapers are printed too early to announce the result.  So they have to ‘guess’ their headline.  And they got it wrong!  On the morning of 24^th, I picked up a paper and decided to keep it.  Here is an extract from the front page.

But the Lord had the last word.

A sad day

This is a sad Christmas in some ways for Sunderland.

Bridge Books and Music is closing for good.

There is now no Christian bookshop in the City of Sunderland.

I realise that times change and people largely use Amazon and download books onto their kindles.  But there's no substitute for browsing... or exchanging secondhand books... or chatting away to Dave or Lynne.

We need places like this.

Bridge Books is not just a bookshop.  It's a safe place.  Somewhere to get fellowship, talk and pray over a coffee through the day.  When the churches are shut and locked up for around six days a week, Lynne's shop is there.  But not any more.  Where do we go now?

Thanks for all your faithful years Lynne.  And everyone else involved in the shop.

Anyone want to open a Christian bookshop or coffee shop?

The Spirit of Rehoboam: We've forgotten our heritage

It will disappoint many Mackems (Sunderland people*) to know that the real city crest is not made up of vertical red and white stripes and black cats.  This is what it really looks like.  If you don't believe me, look up high on the wall of the city library on Fawcett Street.

Whoever thought up that Latin motto didn't realise how timely these words would be in the early 21st Century.  The small remnant of believing Christians in the city need to shake off despair and honour the God who saved them.

A A Boddy

A hundred years ago, Sunderland was the biggest shipbuilding port in the world.  Also, it was well known by Christians too.  Alexander Boddy, the Vicar of a Parish church in Roker, has the reputation of being the founder of Pentecostalism in the UK.  Not only did he do the Sunday Services, parish visiting, Baptisms, Marriages and funerals that any good parish priest would.  He also held yearly Pentecostal conferences in his church!  The leading lights in the 20th Century
Pentecostal movement such as Smith Wigglesworth and the Jeffries brothers came, along with others from throughout Europe and North America.  In addition, he edited and distributed 'Confidence', the earliest magazine of the British pentecostal movement.

Graham Scroggie

A the same time, Graham Scroggie preached at Bethesda Baptist church.  Scroggie was known nationally for his Bible correspondence courses and was one of the best known preachers at that time, going on later to minister at Charlotte Chapel and Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle in London.  Among Scroggie's books was 'The Baptism of the Spirit and Speaking with Tongues' in which he took an opposite view to his Anglican contemporary north of the River Wear.  However, it appears that there was some mutual respect between the two, as Scroggie delivered a series of Sermons at Boddy's parish church in 1909.  Bethesda Church went on to produce numerous leaders, evangelists and missionaries over the following century.  It remains to this day and is still one of the more effective churches in Sunderland.

This is not to mention, of course, the Methodist camp meetings in Sunderland and Seaham and the great impact of the Salvation Army in the 19th Century - before which William and Catherine Booth ran their 'Converting Shop' in Gateshead - a very successful church linked to the Methodists before the Army was founded.

So, why all this nostalgia?

I put to you that I'm not being nostalgic!

Let me quote you a scripture:

The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah. Now it happened in the month of Chislev, in the twentieth year, as I was in Susa the citadel, that Hanani, one of my brothers, came with certain men from Judah. And I asked them concerning the Jews who escaped, who had survived the exile, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, “The remnant there in the province who had survived the exile is in great trouble and shame. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, and its gates are destroyed by fire.” As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven. And I said, “O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, let your ear be attentive and your eyes open, to hear the prayer of your servant that I now pray before you day and night for the people of Israel your servants, confessing the sins of the people of Israel, which we have sinned against you. Even I and my father's house have sinned. We have acted very corruptly against you and have not kept the commandments, the statutes, and the rules that you commanded your servant Moses. Remember the word that you commanded your servant Moses, saying, ‘If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples, but if you return to me and keep my commandments and do them, though your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there I will gather them and bring them to the place that I have chosen, to make my name dwell there.’ They are your servants and your people, whom you have redeemed by your great power and by your strong hand. O Lord, let your ear be attentive to the prayer of your servant, and to the prayer of your servants who delight to fear your name, and give success to your servant today, and grant him mercy in the sight of this man.” Now I was cupbearer to the king. (Nehemiah 1 ESV)

Now let me ask you a question.  When Nehemiah prayed that prayer and resolved to restore the walls of Jerusalem, how long ago had the city been destroyed?  Five years?  Ten years?  Twenty or thirty perhaps?

Nope.  150 years - yes one hundred and fifty!

Like Nehemiah, we should look back, and then grieve over what has happened to our city.  Then we should be crying out to him to forgive the city of its' sins and visit Sunderland powerfully again.  Nehemiah was just one man.  But he left his secure, prestigious job to make it his business to do his part in restoring Jerusalem with a small remnant of people.  Can some of us follow his example?

*A Mackem is a native of Sunderland.  The phrase "Mak 'em and tak 'em" (the Wearside pronunciation of "Make them and take them") probably refers to the ships that were manufactured here.  A Geordie, in contrast is from Tyneside or Newcastle further North.  'Geordie' is a Scottish nickname for a man named George.  The folks of Newcastle were staunch supporters of King George II during the Jacobite rebellion in 1745, and the term stuck.